Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

A POPULAR OUTLINE

IX. CRITIQUE OF IMPERIALISM

By the critique of imperialism, in the broad sense of the term,

    we mean the attitude of the different classes of society towards

    imperialist policy in connection with their general ideology.

The enormous dimensions of finance capital concentrated in a

    few hands and creating an extraordinarily dense and widespread

    network of relationships and connections which subordinates not

    only the small and medium, but also the very small capitalists and

    small masters, on the one hand, and the increasingly intense

    struggle waged against other national state groups of financiers

    for the division of the world and domination over other countries,

    on the other hand, cause the propertied classes to go over

    entirely to the side of imperialism. “General” enthusiasm over the

    prospects of imperialism, furious defence of it and painting it in

    the brightest colours—such are the signs of the

    times. Imperialist ideology also penetrates the working class. No

    Chinese Wall separates it from the other classes. The leaders of

    the present-day, so-called, “Social-Democratic” Party of Germany

    are justly called “social-imperialists,” that is, socialists in

    words and imperialists in deeds; butas early as 1902, Hobson

    noted the existence in Britain of “Fabian imperialists” who

    belonged to the opportunist Fabian Society.

Bourgeois scholars and publicists usually come out in defence

    of imperialism in a somewhat veiled form; they obscure its

    complete domination and its deep-going roots, strive to push

    specific and secondary details into the forefront and do their

    very best to distract attention from essentials by means of

    absolutely ridiculous schemes for “reform,” such as police

    supervision of the trusts or banks, etc. Cynical and frank

    imperialists who are bold enough to admit the absurdity of the

    idea of reforming the fundamental characteristics of imperialism

    are a rarer phenomenon.

Here is an example. The German imperialists attempt, in the

    magazineArchives of World Economy, to follow the

    national emancipation movements in the colonies, particularly, of

    course, in colonies other than those belonging to Germany. They

    note the unrest and the protest movements in India, the movement

    in Natal (South Africa), in the Dutch East Indies, etc. One of

    them, commenting on an English report of a conference held on June

    28-30, 1910, of representatives of various subject nations and

    races, of peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe who are under foreign

    rule, writes as follows in appraising the speeches delivered at

    this conference: “We are told that we must fight imperialism; that

    the ruling states should recognise the right of subject peoples to

    independence; that an international tribunal should supervise the

    fulfilment of treaties concluded between the great powers and weak

    peoples. Further than the expression of these pious wishes they do

    not go. We see no trace of understanding of the fact that

    imperialism is inseparably bound up with capitalism in its present

    form and that, therefore [!!], an open struggle against

    imperialism would be hopeless, unless, perhaps, the fight were to

    be confined to protests against certain of its especially

    abhorrent

excesses.”[1]Since the reform of the basis of

    imperialism is a deception, a “pious wish”, since the bourgeois

    representatives of the oppressed nations go no“further” forward,

    the bourgeois representative of an oppressing nation goes

    “further”backward, to servility towards imperialism

    under cover of the claim to be “scientific.” That is also

    “logic”!

The questions as to whether it is possible to reform the basis

    of imperialism, whether to go forward to the further

    intensification and deepening of the antagonisms which it

    engenders, or backward, towards allaying these antagonisms, are

    fundamental questions in the critique of imperialism. Since the

    specific political features of imperialism are reaction everywhere

    and increased national oppression due to the oppression of the

    financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition, a

    petty-bourgeois-democratic opposition to imperialism arose at

    the beginning of the twentieth century in nearly all imperialist

    countries. Kautsky not only did not trouble to oppose, was not

    only unable to oppose this petty-bourgeois reformist opposition,

    which is really reactionary in its economic basis, but became

    merged with it in practice, and this is precisely where Kautsky

    and the broad international Kautskian trend deserted Marxism.

In the United States, the imperialist war waged against Spain

    in 1898 stirred up the opposition of the “anti-imperialists,” the

    last of the Mohicans of bourgeois democracy who declared this war

    to be “criminal,” regarded the annexation of foreign territories

    as a violation of the Constitution, declared that the treatment of

    Aguinaldo, leader of the Filipinos (the Americans promised him the

    independence of his country, but later landed troops and annexed

    it), was “jingo treachery”, and quoted the words of Lincoln: “When

    the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when

    he governs himself and also governs others, it is no longer

    self-government; it is

despotism.”[2]But as long as all this criticism

    shrank from recognising the inseverable bond between imperialism

    and the trusts, and, therefore, between imperialism and the

    foundations of capitalism, while it shrank from joining the forces

    engendered by large-scale capitalism and its development, it

    remained a “pious wish”.

This is also the main attitude taken by Hobson in his critique

    of imperialism. Hobson anticipated Kautsky in protesting against

    the “inevitability of imperialism” argument, and in urging the

    necessity of “increasing the consuming capacity” of the people

    (under capitalism!). The petty-bourgeois point of view in the

    critique of imperialism, the omnipotence of the banks, the

    financial oligarchy, etc., is adopted by the authors I have often

    quoted, such as Agahd, A. Lansburgh, L. Eschwege, and among the

    French writers Victor Berard, author of a superficial book

    entitledEngland and Imperialismwhich appeared in

    1900. All these authors, who make no claim to be Marxists,

    contrast imperialism with free competition and democracy, condemn

    the Baghdad railway scheme, which is leading to conflicts and war,

    utter “pious wishes” for peace, etc. This applies also to the

    compiler of international stock and share issue statistics,

    A. Neymarck, who, after calculating the thousands of millions of

    francs representing “international” securities, exclaimed in 1912:

    “Is it possible to believe that peace may be disturbed ... that,

    in the face of these enormous figures, anyone would risk starting

    a

war?”[3]

Such simple-mindedness on the part of the bourgeois economists

    is not surprising; moreover,it is in their interestto

    pretend to be so naive and to talk “seriously” about peace under

    imperialism. But what remains of Kautsky’s Marxism, when, in 1914,

    1915 and 1916, he takes up the same bourgeois-reformist point of

    view and affirms that “everybody is agreed” (imperialists, 

pseudo-socialists and social-pacifists) on the matter of peace? Instead

    of an analysis of imperialism and an exposure of the depths of its

    contradictions, we have nothing but a reformist “pious wish” to

    wave them aside, to evade them.

Here is a sample of Kautsky’s economic criticism of

    imperialism. He takes the statistics of the British export and

    import trade with Egypt for 1872 and 1912; it seems that this

    export and import trade has grown more slowly than British foreign

    trade as a whole. From this Kautsky concludes that “we have no

    reason to suppose that withoutmilitary occupation the growth of

    British trade with Egypt would have been less, simply as a result

    of the mere operation of economic factors.” “The urge of capital

    to expand ... can be best promoted, not by the violent methods of

    imperialism, but by peaceful

democracy.”[4]

This argument of Kautsky’s, which is repeated in every key by

    his Russian armour-bearer (and Russian shielder of the

    social-chauvinists),

Mr. Spectator, constitutes the basis of

    Kautskian critique of imperialism, and that is why we must deal

    with it in greater detail. We will begin with a quotation from

    Hilferding, whose conclusions Kautsky on many occasions, and

    notably in April 1915, has declared to have been “unanimously

    adopted by all socialist theoreticians.”

“It is not the business of the proletariat,” writes Hilferding

    “to contrast the more progressive capitalist policy with that of

    the now bygone era of free trade and of hostility towards the

    state. The reply of the proletariat to the economic policy of

    finance capital, to imperialism, cannot be free trade, but

    socialism. The aim of proletarian policy cannot today be the ideal

    of restoring free competition—which has now become a

    reactionary ideal—but the complete elimination of

    competition by the abolition of

capitalism.”[5]

Kautsky broke with Marxism by advocating in the epoch of

    finance capital a “reactionary ideal,” “peaceful democracy,” “the

    mere operation of economic factors,” forobjectivelythis

    ideal drags us back from monopoly to non-monopoly capitalism, and

    is a reformist swindle.

Trade with Egypt (or with any other colony or semi-colony)

    “would have grown more”withoutmilitary occupation,

    without imperialism, and without finance capital. What does this

    mean? That capitalism would have developed more rapidly if free

    competition had not been restricted by monopolies in general, or

    by the “connections,” yoke (i.e., also the monopoly) of finance

    capital, or by the monopolist possession of colonies by certain

    countries?

Kautsky’s argument can have no other meaning; andthis“meaning” is meaningless. Let us assume that free

    competition, without any sort of monopoly, would have developed

    capitalism and trade more rapidly. But the more rapidly trade and

    capitalism develop, the greater is the concentration of production

    and capital whichgives riseto monopoly. And monopolies

    havealreadyarisen—precisely out of free

    competition! Even if monopolies have now begun to retard progress,

    it is not an argument in favour of free competition, which has

    become impossible after it has given rise to monopoly.

Whichever way one turns Kautsky’s argument, one will find

    nothing in it except reaction and bourgeois reformism.

Even if we correct this argument and say, as Spectator says,

    that the trade of the colonies with Britain is now developing more

    slowly than their trade with other countries, it does not save

    Kautsky; for itis alsomonopoly,alsoimperialism that is beating Great Britain, only it is the

    monopoly and imperialism of another country (America, Germany). It

    is known that the cartels have given rise to a new and peculiar

    form of protective tariffs, i.e., goods suitable for export are

    protected (Engels noted this in Vol. III ofCapital[12]). It

    is known, too, that the cartels add finance capital have a system

    peculiar to themselves, that of “exporting goods at cut-rate

    prices”, or “dumping,” as the English call it: within a given

    country the cartel sells its goods at high monopoly prices, but

    sells them abroad at a much lower price to undercut the

    competitor, to enlarge its own production to the utmost, etc. If

    Germany’s trade with the British colonies is developing more

    rapidly than Great Britain’s, it only proves that German

    imperialism is younger, stronger and better organised than British

    imperialism, is superior to it; but it by no means proves the

    “superiority” of free trade, for it is not a fight between free

    trade and protection and colonial dependence, but between two

    rival imperialisms, two monopolies, two groups of finance

    capital. The superiority of German imperialism over British

    imperialism is more potent than the wall of colonial frontiers or

    of protective tariffs: to use this as an “argument” infavourof free trade and “peaceful democracy” is banal, it means

    forgetting the essential features and characteristicsof

    imperialism, substituting petty-bourgeois reformism for

    Marxism.

It is interesting to note that even the bourgeois economist,

    A. Lansburgh, whose criticism of imperialism is as petty-bourgeois

    as Kautsky’s, nevertheless got closer to a more scientific study

    of trade statistics. He did not compare one single country, chosen

    at random, and one single colony with the other countries; he

    examined the export trade of an imperialist country: (1) with

    countries which are financially dependent upon it, and borrow

    money from it; and (2) with countries which are financially

    independent. He obtained the following results:

Lansburgh did not drawconclusionsand therefore,

    strangely enough, failed to observe that if the figures prove

    anything at all, they prove thathe is wrong,for the

    exports to countries financially dependent on Germany have grownmore rapidly,if only slightly, than exports to the

    countries which are financially independent. (I emphasise the

    “if”, for Lansburgh’s figures are far from complete.)

Tracing the connection between exports and loans, Lansburgh

    writes:

“In 1890-91, a Rumanian loan was floated through the German

    banks, which had already in previous years madeadvances on this

loan. It was used chiefly to purchase railway materials in

Germany. In 1891, German exports to Rumania amounted to 55 million

    marks. The following year they dropped to 39.4 million marks and,

    with fluctuations, to 25.4 million in 1900. Only in very recent

    years have they regained the level of 1891, thanks to two new

    loans.

“German exports to Portugal rose, following the loans of 1888-

    to 21,100,000 (1890); then, in the two following years, they

    dropped to 16,200,000 and 7,400,000, and regained their former

    level only in 1903.

“The figures of German trade with Argentina are still more

    striking. Loans were floated in 1888 and 1890; German exports to

    Argentina reached 60,700,000 marks (1889). Two years later they

    amounted to only 18,600,000 marks, less than one-third of the

    previous figure. It was not until 1901 that they regained and

    surpassed the level of 1889, and then only as a result of new

    loans floated by the state and by municipalities, with advances to

    build power stations, and with other credit operations.

“Exports to Chile, as a consequence of the loan of 1889, rose

    to 45,200,000 marks (in 1892), and a year later dropped to

    22,500,000 marks. A new Chilean loan floated by the German banks

    in 1906 was followed by a rise of exports to 84,700,000 marks in

    1907, only to fall again to 52,400,000 marks in

1908.”[6]

From these facts Lansburgh draws the amusing petty-bourgeois

    moral of how unstable and irregular export trade is when it is

    bound up with loans, how bad it is to invest capital abroad

    instead of “naturally” and “harmoniously” developing home

    industry, how “costly” are the millions in bakshish that Krupp has

    to pay in floating foreign loans, etc. But the facts tell us

    clearly: the increase in exports is connected with justtheseswindling tricks of finance capital, which is not concerned

    with bourgeois morality, but with skinning the ox twice—first, it pockets the profits from the loan; then it pockets other

    profits from thesameloan which the borrower uses to

    make purchases from Krupp, or to purchase railway material from

    the Steel Syndicate, etc.

I repeat that I do not by any means consider Lansburgh’s

    figures to be perfect; but I had to quote them because they are

    more scientific than Kautsky’s and Spectator’s and because

    Lansburgh showed the correct way to approach the question. In

    discussing the significance of finance capital in regard to

    exports, etc., one must be able to single out the connection of

    exports especially and solely with the tricks of the financiers,

    especially and solely with the sale of goods by cartels,

    etc. Simply to compare colonies with non-colonies, one imperialism

    with another imperialism, one semi-colony or colony (Egypt) with

    all other countries, is to evade and to obscure the veryessenceof the question.

Kautsky’s theoretical critique of imperialism has nothing in

    common with Marxism and serves only as a preamble to propaganda

    for peace and unity with the opportunists and the

    social-chauvinists, precisely for the reason that it evades and

    obscures the very profound and fundamental contradictions of

    imperialism: the contradictions between monopoly and free

    competition which exists side by side with it, between the

    gigantic “operations” (and gigantic profits) of finance capital

    and “honest” trade in the free market, the contradiction between

    cartels and trusts, on the one hand, and non-cartelised industry,

    on the other, etc.

The notorious theory of “ultra-imperialism,” invented by

    Kautsky, is just as reactionary. Compare his arguments on this

    subject in 1915, with Hobson’s arguments in 1902.

Kautsky: “... Cannot the present imperialist policy be

    supplanted by a new, ultra-imperialist policy, which will

    introduce the joint exploitation of the world by internationally

    united finance capital in place of the mutual rivalries of

    national finance capitals? Such a new phase of capitalism is at

    any rate conceivable. Can it be achieved? Sufficient premises are

    still lacking to enable us to answer this

question.”[7]

Hobson: “Christendom thus laid out in a few great federal

    empires, each with a retinue of uncivilised dependencies, seems to

    many the most legitimate development of presenttendencies, and

    one which would offer the best hope of permanent peace on an

    assured basis of inter-imperialism.”

Kautsky called ultra-imperialism or super-imperialism what

    Hobson, thirteen years earlier, described as inter-

    imperialism. Except for coining a new and clever catchword,

    replacing one Latin prefix by another, the only progress Kautsky

    has made in the sphere of “scientific” thought is that he gave out

    as Marxism what Hobson, in effect, described as the cant of

    English parsons.



    After the Anglo-Boer War it was quite natural for this highly

    honourable caste to exert their main efforts toconsolethe British middle class and the workers who had lost many of

    their relatives on the battlefields of South Africa and who were

    obliged to pay higher taxes in order to guarantee still higher

    profits for the British financiers. And what better consolation

    could there be than the theory that imperialism is not so bad;

    that it stands close to inter- (or ultra-) imperialism, which can

    ensure permanent peace? No matter what the good intentions of the

    English parsons, or of sentimental Kautsky, may have been, the

    only objective, i.e., real, social significance of Kautsky’s

    “theory” is this: it is a most reactionary method of consoling the

    masses with hopes of permanent peace being possible under

    capitalism, by distracting their attention from the sharp

    antagonisms and acute problems of the present times, and directing

    it towards illusory prospects of an imaginary “ultraimperialism”

    of the future. Deception of the masses—that is all there is

    in Kautsky’s “Marxist” theory.

Indeed, it is enough to compare well-known and indisputable

    facts to become convinced of the utter falsity of the prospects

    which Kautsky tries to conjure up before the German workers (and

    the workers of all lands). Let us consider India, Indo-China and

    China. It is known that these three colonial and semi-colonial

    countries, with a population of six to seven hundred million, are

    subjected to the exploitation of the finance capital of several

    imperialist powers: Great Britain, France, Japan, the U.S.A.,

    etc. Let us assume that these imperialist countries form alliances

    against one another in order to protect or enlarge their

    possessions, their interests and their spheres of influence in

    these Asiatic states; these alliances will be “inter-imperialist”,

    or “ultra-imperialist”alliances. Let us assume thatallthe imperialist countries

conclude an alliance for the

    “peaceful” division of these parts of Asia; this alliance would be

    an alliance of “internationally united finance capital.” There are

    actual examples of alliances of this kind in the history of the

    twentieth century—the attitude of the powers to China, for

    instance. We ask, is it “conceivable,” assuming that the

    capitalist system remains intact—and this is precisely the

    assumption that Kautsky does make—that such alliances would

    be more than temporary, that they would eliminate friction,

    conflicts and struggle in every possible form?

The question has only to be presented clearly for any other

    than a negative answer to be impossible. This is because the only

    conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of

    influence, interests, colonies, etc., is a calculation of thestrengthof those participating, their general economic,

    financial, military strength, etc. And the strength of these

    participants in the division does not change to an equal degree,

    for theevendevelopment of different undertakings,

    trusts, branches  of industry, or countries is impossible under

    capitalism. Half a century ago Germany was a miserable,

    insignificant country, if her capitalist strength is compared with

    that of the Britain of that time; Japan compared with Russia in

    the same way. Is it “conceivable” that in ten or twenty years’

    time the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have

    remained unchanged? It is out of the question.

Therefore, in the realities of the capitalist system, and not

    in the banal philistine fantasies of English parsons, or of the

    German “Marxist,” Kautsky, “inter-imperialist” or “ultra-imperialist”

    alliances, no matter what form they may assume,

    whether of one imperialist coalition against another, or of a

    general alliance embracingallthe imperialist powers,

    areinevitably nothingmore than a “truce” in periods

    between wars. Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars, and

    in their turn grow out of wars; the one conditions the other,

    producing alternating forms of peaceful and non-peaceful struggle

    onone and the samebasis of imperialist connections and

    relations within world economics and world politics. But in order

    to pacify the workers and reconcile them with the social-chauvinists

    who havedeserted to the side of the bourgeoisie,

    over-wise Kautskyseparatesone link of a single chain

    from another, separates the present peaceful (and

    ultra-imperialist, nay, ultra-ultra-imperialist) alliance ofallthe powers for the “pacification” of China (remember

    the suppression of theBoxer

Rebellion) from the non-peaceful conflict of

	tomorrow, which will prepare the ground for another “peaceful”

	general alliance for the partition, say, of Turkey, on the day

	after tomorrow,etc., etc.Instead of showing the

	living connection between periods of imperialist peace and

	periods of imperialist war, Kautsky presents the workers with

	a lifeless abstraction in order to reconcile them to their

	lifeless leaders.

An American writer, Hill, in hisA History of the Diplomacy

    in the International Development of Europerefers in his

    preface to the following periods in the recent history of

    diplomacy: (1) the era of revolution; (2) the constitutional

    movement; (3) the present era of “commercial

imperialism.”[8]Another

    writer divides the history of Great Britain’s “world policy” since

    1870 into four periods: (1) the first Asiatic period (that of the

    struggle against Russia’s advance in Central Asia towards India);

    (2) the African period (approximately 1885-1902): that of the

    struggle against France for the partition of Africa (the “Fashoda

    incident” of 1898 which brought her within a hair’s breadth of war

    with France); (3) the second Asiatic period (alliance with Japan

    against Russia); and (4) the “European” period, chiefly

    anti-German.[9]“The political patrol clashes take

    place on the financial field,” wrote the banker, Riesser, in 1905,

    in showing how French finance capital operating in Italy was

    preparing the way for a political alliance of these countries, and

    how a conflict was developing between Germany and Great Britain

    over Persia, between all the European capitalists over Chinese

    loans, etc. Behold, the living reality of peaceful

    “ultra-imperialist” alliances in their inseverable connection with

    ordinary imperialist conflicts!

Kautsky’s obscuring of the deepest contradictions ofimperialism, which inevitably boils down to painting imperialism

    in bright colours, leaves its traces in this writer’s criticism of

    the political features of imperialism. Imperialism is the epoch of

    finance capital and of monopolies, which introduce everywhere the

    striving for domination, not for freedom. Whatever the political

    system, the result of these tendencies is everywhere reaction and

    an extreme intensification of antagonisms in this

    field. Particularly intensified become the yoke of national

    oppression and the striving for annexations, i.e., the violation

    of national independence (for annexation is nothing but the

    violation of the right of nations to

    self-determination). Hilferding rightly notes the connection

    between imperialism and the intensification of national

    oppression. “In the newly opened-up countries,” he writes, “the

    capital imported into them intensifies antagonisms and excites

    against the intruders the constantly growing resistance of the

    peoples who are awakening to national consciousness; this

    resistance can easily develop into dangerous measures against

    foreign capital. The old social relations become completely

    revolutionised, the age-long agrarian isolation of ‘nations

    without history’ is destroyed and they are drawn into the

    capitalist whirlpool. Capitalism itself gradually provides the

    subjugated with the means and resources for their emancipation and

    they set out to achieve the goal which once seemed highest to the

    European nations: the creation of a united national state as a

    means to economic and cultural freedom. This movement for national

    independence threatens European capital in its most valuable and

    most promising fields of exploitation, and European capital can

    maintain its domination only by continually increasing its

    military

forces.”[10]

To this must be added that it is not only in newly opened-up

    countries, but also in the old, that imperialism is leading to

    annexation, to increased national oppression, and, consequently,

    also to increasing resistance. While objectingto the

    intensification of political reaction by imperialism, Kautsky

    leaves in the shade a question that has become particularly

    urgent, viz., the impossibility of unity with the opportunists in

    the epoch of imperialism. While objecting to annexations, he

    presents his objections in a form that is most acceptable and

    least offensive to the opportunists. He addresses himself to a

    German audience, yet he obscures the most topical and important

    point, for instance, the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by

    Germany. In order to appraise this “mental aberration” of

    Kautsky’s I shall take the following example. Let us suppose that

    a Japanese condemns the annexation of the Philippines by the

    Americans. The question is: will many believe that he does so

    because he has a horror of annexations as such, and not because he

    himself has a desire to annex the Philippines? And shall we not be

    constrained to admit that the “fight” the Japanese is waging

    against annexations can be regarded as being sincere and

    politically honest only if he fights against the annexation of

    Korea by Japan, and urges freedom for Korea to secede from

    Japan?

Kautsky’s theoretical analysis of imperialism, as well as his

    economic and political critique of imperialism, are permeatedthrough and throughwith a spirit, absolutely

    irreconcilable with Marxism, of obscuring and glossing over the

    fundamental contradictions of imperialism and with a striving to

    preserve at all costs the crumbling unity with opportunism in the

    European working-class movement.

[1]Weltwirtschaffliches Archiv, Bd. II, S. 193.

—Lenin

[2]J. Patouillet,

    L’impérialisme américain,Dijon, 1904,

    p. 272.

—Lenin

[3]Bulletin de l’Institut

    International de Statistique,T. XIX,Lvr. II,

    p. 225.

—Lenin

[4]Kautsky,Nationalstaat,

    imperialistischer Staat und Staatenbund,Nürnberg, 1915,

    S. 72, 70.

—Lenin

[5]Finance Capital,p. 567.

—Lenin

[6]Die Bank,1909, 2, S. 819

    et seq.

—Lenin

[7]Die Neue Zeit, April 30,

    1915, S. 144.

—Lenin

[8]David Jayne Hill,History of the

    Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe, Vol. I,

    p. X.

—Lenin

[9]Schilder, op. cit., S. 178.

—Lenin

[10]Finance Capital,

    p. 487.

—Lenin

[11][PLACEHOLDER.]

[12][PLACEHOLDER.]

[13][PLACEHOLDER.]